Considering to do such conversion but don't know how. Wut's the bestboption?

 

Get with the guys in Corvettes Down Under or any of the Australian American Car Clubs.
http://www.corvettesdownunder.com.au/

Lars

 

Leave it alone.

 

I believe it requires the skills of a Jedi Knight.

 

only seen one that was done, corvette summer...... nuf said

 

Thx guys. Any shops or technicians in the States can perform such? Is it a mess?

 

The experts at this are the shops in the countries requiring the conversion. If you're needing it done, you're going there, so have it done where it's required. The entire car dash-forward is cut apart, re-fabricated, and re-assembled using custom built and modified components. Not much of a mess as long as you keep sweeping up the by-products of the SawZall. The mod exceeds the value of the car easily by 2:1, so you better want a RHD Vette with no value in any other country than your destination.

 

Thx Lars. Uve gotta point.

 

Vette magozine used to show some from down under.....they looked flawless....like they were built that way....

$$$$$

 

As the owner of a rhd 81 and lhd 80 in Perth West Australia , I can answer don't do it ! My 81 has a great conversion, but it's was never intended to rhd . You do realize the engine/trans is offset to make more room for the driver? I had not much choice when I bought 81 13 years ago but they relaxed to lhd in my state so decided I had to get a 4 speed 80.

 

I think SRiii can do an rhd chassis and probably most of the basic reconfiguration. Then you would have an rhd rsto-mod.

 

My 74 was converted to RHD when imported to Oz (by previous owner), if you import a LHD and it's over 25 years old
you don't need to convert it (in the state I live in-Victoria Australia).
As phil81 said the floor is smaller on the right side making the pedals a lot closer together, among other things.
Cheers,
Gav

 

Thx guys. Apart from wut uve mentioned, wut abt the driving experience?
I'm looking at C3 but not sure abt the fun part.

 

chow,

How about telling us WHY you want to do this? If it's just to be different, why not put a Ford engine in it, etc. This can easily be removed and the car restored to original later on. But once you hack up a car to convert it to RHD, the skills of a Jedi Master will be needed to re-convert it to LHD at a later stage.

I'm also on the '67 to '72 truck forum, and a few of those guys have converted to RHD "just to be different". However, there is a ton of room under the bonnet on those things, the engines are mounted centrally in the chassis, and the dashboards are "symmetrical" and lend themselves to this kind of conversion.

However, C3 Corvettes were built with the engine moved over one inch to the right, to give the driver more leg room. The right engine mount bracket is about two inches further to the rear than the left one, and the steering box needs to share the same space as the bracket if converted to RHD. Or you can find a RHD R&P (good luck!!!)
and try to engineer that into the car.

Then there is the instrument panel and the HVAC ducting, plus the wiring loom, etc. Then you still end up with two inches LESS leg room than the LHD set-up. Of course, you could move the engine two inches to the left to compensate for this, but then the narrow transmission tunnel gets in the way. So you have to chop that up and move it.

Then there's the trans X-member: the trans mount will have to be moved, will the exhaust pipes line up with the X-member holes? I'm guessing "No".

So unless you have a very close relationship with someone with the skills of Chip Foose and a wheelbarrow full of Benjamins that you don't want, I'd look at something else to occupy your spare time.

Regards from Down Under.

aussiejohn

 

John mate,
Reason for the conversion is that I live in Hong Kong, a RHD city. Pathetically, our authority banned the registration of LHD vehicles some 12 mths ago.
Now u guys undestand my difficulty.
Thx for the comments btw.

 

Now I know your predicament. I guess you've tried to register it in mainland China and just "visit" HK with it. My advice is that you will not find anybody with the skills necessary near you to do the conversion.

Your best bet is to look for a RHD car that is for sale in Australia and ask for a local Forum member to look at it for you. If the conversion has been done well, then you could import it to HK and hopefully get it registered. The shipping costs will be a fraction of what you'd spend having a conversion done.

Then you could sell your existing car to someone in OZ and maybe you won't be out of pocket too much.

Good luck and let us know what happens.

Regards from Down Under.

aussiejohn

 

Thanks. Incredibly useful and constructive. I'll c wut I should do next.
Whether C3 or wutsoever, will let u guys know.

 

IRS demands that both rear axles are the same length, R-L and so that means the diffy has to be centrally mounted, if you look at the construction, you find that the pinion has to be offset to the R side of the car, simply no other way to build it in the pumpkin....so in the case of our sharks, the engine has to be inline with that or too much drive shaft angle and vibrations result from too much U joint angles.....

so engine has to be moved a inch or so to the right.....


has little to nothing to do with driver room....that's just a slight plus....

 

Great input!!.... I didn't know that was a key factor in the offset engine location.

BTW, my conversion was done without relocating the engine, however I have started to convert back to LHD for originality.


Joe

 

No, that makes no difference at all.

A u-joint can take (an in fact to avoid flattening the needle-bearings, should take) more than just a little angle; it doesn't matter if it's left/right, up/down, whatever, as the u-joint just knows the total angle, not the direction of the difference. Moving the drivetrain over by two inches is not going to exceed the operating-range of the u-joints (and they could be clearanced if they did face interference in the yokes).

I agree that your best bet would be to spend the money on a RHD Corvette with a decent conversion.